well, it cheats beyond intelligent (or tough overall setting), so I guess the answer to that is that it depends on your difficulty level.

some of the AI's (drengin in particular) seem to focus on weapons research early.

tough is smartest ai with no handicapping. any higher and the ai gets bonus production(handicapping). seems ppl around here are a bit sensitive about the 'c' word, lol. tho as far as i know handicapping, rather than cheating, is the appropriate term for this game. cheating is when the ai can do things your not allowed, like seeing thru walls on FPS or knowing where all your ships are for no reason in a game like this. be warned tho, when you hit masochistic there is a rather drastic jump in the handicap, it is not a smooth progression up from tough.

handicapped for us, advantage for em...

I never research armor because offensive is the best defensive, so I usually just research weapon too and try to get high lvl weapon faster than AI and when I get the advantage I will spend a little time/money on the armor but that's still after I have the general life support and warp drive.

Tough is supposed to be a fair difficulty lvl for both human and computer players, right?

This game has really good AI, nice work Stardock!